I finally gave in and started watching Breaking Bad. Did I already mention that here? I don't know. The point IS that after only 4.5 episodes I am only totally hooked. Great show. It's especially dangerous how netflix gives you 20 seconds then starts up the next episode. It's hard not to just keep on going.

Just started thinking about my favorite TV series of all time, and felt like posting about in on here even though it's not a recent series and I haven't seen it in a long time. So, without further adieu...

Kings (2009)

The show only ran for one season, and I kind of blame NBC for giving it a time slot on Saturday night--a time slot where TV goes to die.

Anyway, the show takes place in a fictional world where society evolves at the same historical rate as our world except for government; monarchies have kept going until modern times, even in first world nations. The show follows one nation in particular and their ruler who is losing his people's faith by continuing to fail to end a war with a rival nation. In an attempt to rectify this, he befriends a young, popular war hero and gives him a role as an advisor. While the soldier in question continues to show up the king completely by accident, he never sees the king as anything more than a role model. The King, however, starts to see him as a threat and things get pretty intense. It's an awesome political drama if you're into that sort of thing, and packed full of amazing talent.

It's not available on Netflix (that I know of) but you can get it on Amazon Prime pretty cheap. I actually plan to rewatch it this summer when there's less shows that I follow on.

Another awesome episode. I actually wonder how much of politics is defending what you believe versus defending the answer that will get you the most votes in an election. For an episode about being pro-life/pro-choice, very little is officially said but elegantly danced around... funny enough, it almost feels like for the best in the show as difficult as it is to discuss out of it.

Hannibal

"I didn't kill him". OH MAN!!! What a surprisingly elegant (er, well for THIS show) solution to another amazing episode. But there was still lots of blood, big feelings, and cleverness from all parts.

It's also good to see Will acting a bit more on the level. In the first season he was always pre-seizure kind of jumbling and stuttering his words, psyche, and so on. There's reason, but now we have a really confident Will Graham and the players are all playing sharper.

Season 1 was a pretty damn fine start. But Season 2 has really upped the ante and found amazing balance between the over-arching plot and the B-plots that happen per episode (or...the other way around...whatever).

Rick and Morty

Nooooo. Season 1 was over too soon!!!I do admire the send off though. This was another pretty plotless episode but that simply ran with good comedy and fun ideas.

The spoof on Titanic (and later, Cape Fear) was great B-material especially in how it was keeping the plot "safe" that made things such a drag.

I also like Abradolf Lincler. Half Lincoln, half Hitler, all pain in the ass.

So I marathoned the second season of The Following. Half way I started to get bored and resorted to reading recaps and then fast forwarding episodes to the interesting parts. I know it got picked up for a third season, which tells me Joe gets away again. If that happens, I will stop watching and only tune in for the series finale.

Talkin' Game of Thrones! Will also contain changes from book, but not anything that hasn't already happened in the show yet.

Code:

Nothing quite says funeral than sticking googly eyes on the corpse. Then having your parents fuck infront of your corpse.

Interesting that in the show, Cersei is raped by Jaime, but in the books she is a very willing participant. I wonder why that change was made? I can't tell if its to redeem Cersei in some way (even she can't get in the mood in front of the body of her dead son. She can't be ALL bad, right?) or to give Jaime some moral ambiguity since he was clearly on the right path for a while there. Team Jaime/Brienne.

The Hound decks a guy that gave him food and shelter and steals the silver from him in front of his daughter. All in all, it's a step in the right direction for The Hound. Normally he would just kill him. Arya must be rubbing off on him. Also best line in the show when the dad starts his prayer to the Seven and he says

"You gonna do all Seven of the fuckers?"

Potato Mum died in front of her son. Alas, we hardly knew ye potato mum. May your soul rest in the great potato in the sky.

Dany is still cruising the land with her hoard of Unsullied lookin' for cities to plunder and slaves to free. The fight scene in the book with the Champion of Mareen was quite lengthy, but I can tell why it was changed the way it was. First of all, the champion she picked in the book isn't even in the show. Strong Belwas was part of a sub-plot involving Ser Barriston, but that was all cut from the show.

What was all that about when Dany was picking the champion though.

Grey Worm was all "I will die for you Khaleesi, pls" and she was all "I cannot, you were born on a Tuesday. I will not gamble with your life."

Ser Jorah was all "I will die for you Khaleesi, pls." and she was all "I cannot, you must remain in the friend zone for at least 3 more years. I will not gamble with your life."

Then Ser Barriston was all "I will die for you Khaleesi, pls" and she was all "I cannot, your beard is the most magnificent shade of white. I will not gamble with your life."

And then Daario was all "I will die for you Khaleesi, pls" and she was all "Alright. I liked the other actor that played you better anyways."

Talkin' Game of Thrones! Will also contain changes from book, but not anything that hasn't already happened in the show yet.

Code:

Nothing quite says funeral than sticking googly eyes on the corpse. Then having your parents fuck infront of your corpse.

Interesting that in the show, Cersei is raped by Jaime, but in the books she is a very willing participant. I wonder why that change was made? I can't tell if its to redeem Cersei in some way (even she can't get in the mood in front of the body of her dead son. She can't be ALL bad, right?) or to give Jaime some moral ambiguity since he was clearly on the right path for a while there. Team Jaime/Brienne.

The Hound decks a guy that gave him food and shelter and steals the silver from him in front of his daughter. All in all, it's a step in the right direction for The Hound. Normally he would just kill him. Arya must be rubbing off on him. Also best line in the show when the dad starts his prayer to the Seven and he says

"You gonna do all Seven of the fuckers?"

Potato Mum died in front of her son. Alas, we hardly knew ye potato mum. May your soul rest in the great potato in the sky.

Dany is still cruising the land with her hoard of Unsullied lookin' for cities to plunder and slaves to free. The fight scene in the book with the Champion of Mareen was quite lengthy, but I can tell why it was changed the way it was. First of all, the champion she picked in the book isn't even in the show. Strong Belwas was part of a sub-plot involving Ser Barriston, but that was all cut from the show.

What was all that about when Dany was picking the champion though.

Grey Worm was all "I will die for you Khaleesi, pls" and she was all "I cannot, you were born on a Tuesday. I will not gamble with your life."

Ser Jorah was all "I will die for you Khaleesi, pls." and she was all "I cannot, you must remain in the friend zone for at least 3 more years. I will not gamble with your life."

Then Ser Barriston was all "I will die for you Khaleesi, pls" and she was all "I cannot, your beard is the most magnificent shade of white. I will not gamble with your life."

And then Daario was all "I will die for you Khaleesi, pls" and she was all "Alright. I liked the other actor that played you better anyways."

George R. R. Martin commented himself, and really changes the perspective ---- and I wish they went for that. Que sera sera, all the more reason to get an interesting alternative from the books. He still seems quite "around" the project though... Do they ever consult with him? Or is it just the popularity of the books/show itself that keeps him in the spotlight?

Daenerys is an amazing friend zoner. But she's got balls and heart and I love her. Still I started to laugh a lot at your run of the standoff scene. xD

Anyways. An interview with Maisie Williams commented how she recognized the Hound as the "YAARP" guy from Hot Fuzz!! Holy fuck he's become a lot more badass! haha

Oh, here's a giant interactive Game of Thrones world map for your viewing pleasure that some hardcore fan madehttp://quartermaester.info/

Apparently The Newsroom is doing an episode about the Boston City Bombing. Bold choice, and I'm sure some will say it's 'too soon'.... I'm more ready to roll my eyes given the hindsight bias the show suffers and the poorly played characters. It's a fun show, and it's fun to watch something that is on one hand brilliant, but on the other so completely and utterly flawed. I'm kind of glad it's over, I do like Sorkin a lot but this project was...a bit misguided. He says that it wasn't about "doing better" and one-upping how situations were actually handled, but just taking the modern world and working with that. Cool. Anyways, I look forward enough to the final season and look forward to Sorkin's next project.